Developers write application code that runs on Web Service platforms. Web Service platforms are self-contained, modular applications that can be described, published, located, and invoked over a network such as the World Wide Web. Web Service platforms are provided by different vendors, such as IBM®, MICROSOFT® or SUN MICROSYSTEMS®, that generally use a standardized Application Programming Interface (API) such as J2EE. API method calls contain both dynamic and static information. Dynamic data includes specific information such as argument values and return assignment usage. The dynamic data is specific to the developer's code and may contain sensitive information. Static data includes more generic information such as the method name and argument types.
Although API method calls are standardized, usage rules and known bugs may vary between different vendor's Web Service platforms. Web Service platform vendors make information regarding API usage, best practices and known bugs for their web service platform available in published API usage data sheets.
Developers strive to write code that is compatible on multiple vendors' Web Service platforms. To ensure portability across multiple platforms, developers must test their code for compatibility with each vendor's Web Services. In order to test their codes for compatibility, developers need access to each of the Web Services platform for which compatibility is sought. Testing code on multiple Web Service platforms is time consuming and can be expensive if the developer must pay for access to each vendor's Web Services.
Therefore, a need exists for a developer's tool that can automatically test code against API usage data sheets published on multiple Web Service platforms at one time.